upgrade to Windows XP professional

[Guest]

OK, so I'm not always an "early adopter" when it comes to operating systems.
I usually just leave whatever came with a computer on it until it's time to
get a new box. However, in this case the computer was one my wife uses only
for email and surfing. Upgrading from Win98 to XP seemed to be a cost
effective way to go.

Unfortunately, I'm having problems with the upgrade. First the problem The
install makes it through the "collecting information" and Dynamic Upgrade"
sections. About halfway through the "Preparing to Install" section the
computer locks up. It will just sit there happily telling me about all of
the nice new features that I'll have after I upgrade, but never proceeds onto
the next step. I've let it sit over night with no progress.

Background information.

The computer is a Gateway 433 Mhz machine with 256meg of RAM.
The hard drive has 60 Gig available.
The computer has both Spy Sweeper and CA Antivirus software installed. Full
scans with both have been done. Both programs are disabled during the
upgrade.
I am upgrading from Win98 SE SP2 to Win XP Pro SP2. Both operating systems
are legitimate.
I defragged the hard drive prior to starting the upgrade.
No other programs are running during the upgrade.

I have backed up all data on the machine, so if I have to zap the hard drive
and install from scratch, that can be done if necessary. But I'm not sure
how easy that would be to do with an upgrade CD rather than a new
installation CD.

Does anyone have any ideas about what might be locking up the computer
during install? I can dig pretty deep into things if needed. All of our
other computers run XP and I can usually find my way around fairly well.

Thanks in advance for any help that you can give!

Regards

Clemson1

 

[GreenieLeBrun]

OK, so I'm not always an "early adopter" when it comes to operating
systems.
I usually just leave whatever came with a computer on it until it's time
to
get a new box. However, in this case the computer was one my wife uses
only
for email and surfing. Upgrading from Win98 to XP seemed to be a cost
effective way to go.

Unfortunately, I'm having problems with the upgrade. First the problem
The
install makes it through the "collecting information" and Dynamic Upgrade"
sections. About halfway through the "Preparing to Install" section the
computer locks up. It will just sit there happily telling me about all of
the nice new features that I'll have after I upgrade, but never proceeds
onto
the next step. I've let it sit over night with no progress.

Background information.

The computer is a Gateway 433 Mhz machine with 256meg of RAM.
The hard drive has 60 Gig available.
The computer has both Spy Sweeper and CA Antivirus software installed.
Full
scans with both have been done. Both programs are disabled during the
upgrade.
I am upgrading from Win98 SE SP2 to Win XP Pro SP2. Both operating
systems
are legitimate.
I defragged the hard drive prior to starting the upgrade.
No other programs are running during the upgrade.

I have backed up all data on the machine, so if I have to zap the hard
drive
and install from scratch, that can be done if necessary. But I'm not sure
how easy that would be to do with an upgrade CD rather than a new
installation CD.

Does anyone have any ideas about what might be locking up the computer
during install? I can dig pretty deep into things if needed. All of our
other computers run XP and I can usually find my way around fairly well.

Thanks in advance for any help that you can give!

Regards

Clemson1

Although your wife's machine does meet (and exceed) the minimum requirements
for XP I feel you will be dissapointed in the loss of performance over
Win98. I have run XP on a PIII-600MHz unit with 512Mb RAM and found the
performance some what lacking.

I suggest you leave Win98 on that box and look around for a second hand P4
which here (Australia) can be found for less than $200.00 (Aus).

Try to do a clean install rather than an upgrade, boot from the XP CD, nuke
the drive and create a new partition/s, at some stage XP will ask you to
insert the Win98 CD to check that you have a qualifing product. The
following link may be of some use http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=316941

 

[Claymore]

Hello Clemson,

I realize that your current hardware meets the minimum specs for XP to
run, but with a 433MHz processor it's going to be sluggish. I
personally would think twice about using a nice new XP installation on
this system, but if you're decided to go, then you can install your
upgrade on a clean formatted drive, PROVIDED you have a genuine full
Windows 98 CD on hand (not just an upgrade version). You would format
your drive (or format it at the beginning of the installation
process), begin the XP installation, and when asked for a qualifying
existing OS, remove the XP installation CD, insert the Windows 98 CD,
let it be recognized, re-insert the XP CD and complete the
installation. This also presumes that you have all your essential data
on hand ready to be copied. You would have to re-install your personal
programs, so you would need the installation files or CD's. Some may
not go, as they might require an XP version. You would also have to
get all the latest updates for your new XP (you would have to do this
anyway).

But, as I say, make sure you have all your data - documents, program
data, e-mail, etc. saved somewhere else.

Once XP is installed, you can tweak it for faster performance. One
basic way is to remove all the "eye candy" that is set by default.
Double-click on 'My Computer' => Advanced tab => Performance section
=> Settings button and uncheck everything except the last (bottom) two
boxes.

Luck!

 

[Harry Ohrn]

Check here http://www.aumha.org/a/xpupgrad.htm

I've installed XP on systems that meet your specs. Just turn off the eye
candy and it will perform fine for surfing the minimal usage you need it
for. However what you are reporting is a typical response to XP choking due
to hardware problems. Sometimes flaky RAM is the culprit, other times
install freezes are related to hard drive, CPU or powersupply issues. Even
though Windows 98 will install and run fine, XP often causes install
problems due to it's heavy demand on resources during install. You might try
removing unnecessary hardware such as a modem, network card, peripherals and
due a bare bones install.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

OK, so I'm not always an "early adopter" when it comes to operating systems.
I usually just leave whatever came with a computer on it until it's time to
get a new box. However, in this case the computer was one my wife uses only
for email and surfing. Upgrading from Win98 to XP seemed to be a cost
effective way to go.

Unfortunately, I'm having problems with the upgrade. First the problem The
install makes it through the "collecting information" and Dynamic Upgrade"
sections. About halfway through the "Preparing to Install" section the
computer locks up. It will just sit there happily telling me about all of
the nice new features that I'll have after I upgrade, but never proceeds onto
the next step. I've let it sit over night with no progress.

Background information.

The computer is a Gateway 433 Mhz machine with 256meg of RAM.

That's barely adequate. WinXP'll run, but it'll be slow. I'm afraid,
given those specifications, that the the word "glacial" comes to mind,
and you'll want to upgrade to a larger hard drive if you're planning on
installing many applications.

Acceptable performance is, of course, a matter of personal opinion
and depends entirely upon what *you* expect to do with your computer. If
all you want to do is play WinXP's built-in games, send and receive
simple emails, browse the Internet (while avoiding the more "ornamental"
web sites) etc., such a machine may well meet your needs. If, however,
you plan to take advantage of WinXP's multimedia capabilities, play
graphic-intensive games, or do advanced word or data processing, such a
machine would probably be woefully inadequate.

If you turn off all of WinXP GUI eye-candy, it will still be very
slow, but it might be usable for simple word processing, email,
web-browsing, etc. It won't be any good for graphics-intensive
applications, and most newer games. (During the public preview period,
I tested WinXP on a 500 MHz machine with 256 Mb of RAM, and it was much
slower than I like.)

To help improve WinXP's performance on older machines:

1) Right-click the Task Bar > Properties > Start Menu, ensure "Classic
Start menu" is selected.

2) Right-click an empty spot on the Desktop > Properties > Themes >
select "Windows Classic."

3) Right-click My Computer > Properties > Performance > Settings >
Visual Effects, ensure "Adjust for best performance" is selected.

The hard drive has 60 Gig available.
The computer has both Spy Sweeper and CA Antivirus software installed. Full
scans with both have been done. Both programs are disabled during the
upgrade.

Remove the anti-virus software completely. You'll need a different
version to work with WinXP, anyway.

I am upgrading from Win98 SE SP2 to Win XP Pro SP2. Both operating systems
are legitimate.
I defragged the hard drive prior to starting the upgrade.
No other programs are running during the upgrade.

I have backed up all data on the machine, so if I have to zap the hard drive
and install from scratch, that can be done if necessary. But I'm not sure
how easy that would be to do with an upgrade CD rather than a new
installation CD.

It's quite possible to perform a clean installation using the
Upgrade CD, provided you have the true installation CD for the earlier
OS.

Simply boot from the WinXP Upgrade CD. You'll be offered the
opportunity to delete, create, and format partitions as part of the
installation process. The Upgrade CD checks to see if a qualifying OS
is installed, and, if it finds none, it asks you to insert the
installation media (CD) of that OS. Unfortunately, an OEM
"Recovery/Restore" CD will not work for this purpose; you must have a
true installation CD, complete with the "\Win98" folder and *.cab
files, or the "\i386" folder of WinNT/2K.

Does anyone have any ideas about what might be locking up the computer
during install? I can dig pretty deep into things if needed. All of our
other computers run XP and I can usually find my way around fairly well.

Thanks in advance for any help that you can give!

Regards

Clemson1

Had you verified that all of your PC's hardware components were
capable of supporting WinXP? This information will be found at the PC's
manufacturer's web site, and on Microsoft's Windows Catalog:
(http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hcl/default.mspx)

You should also have taken a few minutes to ensure that there are
WinXP-specific device drivers available for all of the machine's
components. There may not be, if the PC was specifically designed for
Win98/Me. Also bear in mind that PCs designed for, sold and run fine
with Win9x/Me very often do not meet WinXP's much more stringent
hardware *quality* requirements. This is particularly true of many
models in Compaq's consumer-class Presario product line or HP's
consumer-class Pavilion product line. WinXP, like WinNT and Win2K
before it, is quite sensitive to borderline defective or substandard
hardware (particularly motherboards, RAM and hard drives) that will
still support Win9x.

HOW TO Prepare to Upgrade Win98 or WinMe
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q316639

Upgrading to Windows XP
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpupgrad.htm

HOW TO Troubleshoot Windows XP Problems During Installation When You
Upgrade from Windows 98 or Windows Me
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q310064


--

Bruce Chambers

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